Fewer attack victims treated in A&E

The number of violent attacks needing hospital treatment fell by 4% last year.

PUBLISHED: 05:05, Wed, Apr 18, 2012

Fewer people needed treatment in accident and emergency departments for violent attacks last year, a [PA]

The number of violent attacks needing hospital treatment fell by 4% last year.

An estimated 307,998 people were admitted to accident and emergency units for violence-related injuries last year, some 10,879 fewer than in 2010, according to data supplied by the units.

The survey also showed that the rise seen over the previous two years in the number of young children needing emergency hospital treatment has stopped, with such attacks falling 14% in 2011.

Professor Jonathan Shepherd, director of the violence and society research group at Cardiff University, said the trends were encouraging.

"Falls in the most at-risk groups, aged between 11 and 30, are particularly promising," he said. "This continues a trend identified in 2010 and is likely to be linked to policing, community partnerships and public health interventions."

He went on: "We also welcome the reversal of violence-related harm to small children, which may well reflect Government efforts to tackle this problem."

Prof Shepherd added that the estimated violence-related injury rate for everyone in England and Wales was still too high at 5.59 per 1,000 residents.

The figures, based on data from 42 emergency departments and minor injury units in England and Wales, also showed a 5.3% fall in the number of men suffering serious violence-related injury and a 1% fall for women. But violent attacks on men still outnumber those on women by about three to one, the report showed.

Among those aged 18 to 30, the most at-risk age group, they were also down 3.8% last year, the figures showed.

The report was published ahead of the release of the latest crime statistics for 2011 by the Office for National Statistics on Thursday.